


I was watching while you cracked

by La_Pacifidora



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, References to Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/La_Pacifidora/pseuds/La_Pacifidora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Good evening, everyone.” The woman smiled at the group warmly. “My name is Joyce, and I’m a narcotics addict.”</p><p>Annie felt Jeff tense beside her and put a hand to her forehead with a shuddering breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I was watching while you cracked

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [Milady/Milord on LJ in February 2011](http://milady-milord.livejournal.com/340028.html).
> 
> Spoilers: Post-2.12, “Asian Population Studies”; Nothing from then on, unless you didn’t know Pierce was on his feet again.
> 
> Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… The title is from Jeremy Messersmith’s ‘Love you to pieces.’
> 
> Author’s note: This bit of nonsense was inspired by a conversation treblebeth, judykim97, thetidebreaks, veritas724, Chelsea (why can I not remember your LJ name?), and I had on Twitter the other evening. Also, three things: First, I am not a Pierce apologist, but I also do not hate him. Second, I’m not doing a bunch of research on this. Third, I started this Monday night, but I’m finishing it post-‘Early 21st Century Romanticism.’

Annie had been staring at the poster of the kitten hanging from a tree branch for at least – she glanced down at her watch – 10 minutes.

She didn’t know why she was staring: She’d stared at it for at least 10 minutes every two weeks for a year and then once or twice a month for the last nine months. She knew every inch of it by heart.

She knew the arc of the ascender on the ‘H.’ 

She knew the swoop on the inside curve of the exclamation mark.

She knew the head-shaped negative space created by the connection of the ‘T’ and ‘h’ in the word ‘there.’

And she knew every faded, discolored spot where lemonade or tea had been splashed and wiped away guiltily.

Annie shivered and wrapped her other hand around the Styrofoam cup of cocoa she’d been nursing for the last 15 minutes. From behind her, she could hear the sound of the rest of the group shuffling back up the hall toward the meeting room. 

She shifted from one foot to the other, trying to catch the kitten’s blue eyes with her own and repeating the poster’s slogan to herself silently as she downed the last of her cocoa and turned to return to the meeting room.

Annie didn’t have any explanation for why she hadn’t looked up to see the person she slammed into with enough force to send her stumbling back several steps.

(Actually, she thought maybe the kitten’s eyes were hypnotic or were printed with secret subliminal messages, but it wasn’t like she was going to admit _that_. She didn’t need to go borrowing trouble.)  
***  
Jeff thanked the lanky blonde, who handed him a community center calendar and smiled a little too broadly as she urged him to call – oh, and had she mentioned she always worked Tuesday evenings from six till close? No? – if he had any questions about the basketball league he’d just signed up for and turned to leave. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he paused to read a posting on a board next to the door and shot a glance back at the blonde: Sure enough, her eyes were glued to his ass. He shook his head and exited the main office, turning left out of the lobby down the main hall that led back to the parking lot.

Jeff shuffled the papers in his hand and was folding them in half when he walked into a padded concrete post.

(He wasn’t sure what to make of the passing thought that it was a very _familiar_ padded concrete post.)

“Oof.” “Ow!”

Jeff reached out and caught the arms of the person he had collided with, even as he took a step back to get back his own balance. He took a deep breath, inhaling a faint floral scent and taking stock of the young woman in front of him, noting the hand she held to her forehead, the curtain of dark hair swept back behind the familiar curve of an ear, the quiet ‘ow’ noises she was making, the carefully pressed yellow cardigan-

“Annie?” He smirked when her head shot up and her eyes widened impossible as her mouth formed a little ‘o.’ “You’ve decided to bypass reasoning with me and go straight to head butting?”

“Jeff?” Annie’s voice was faint, and she even swayed a little in his grasp, the initial flush of her cheeks draining away. She darted a glance from his face over his shoulder and back, a look of panic beginning to form on her face.

Jeff followed her glance, looking over his own shoulder but seeing nothing but a few people milling outside a door. He looked back at her, giving her a skeptical look.

“Invisible monsters?”

“What?”

“No, let me guess.” He removed a hand from one of her arms and held his chin thoughtfully. “Tiny evil marionettes that will suck out our souls and pull us into the walls?” He bit back a grin as Annie frowned at him in confusion. “No? Weeping Angels? Dean Pelton? I don’t know, Edison.” He let go of her other arm when she shrugged him off and cupped his other elbow in his hand while she crossed her arms. “What’s got you scared shitless?”

“I am not scared shi- I am _not_ afraid of anything.” Annie stuck out her chin defiantly and tried for a neutral expression.

“Well, if you’re not scared, then what don’t you want me to see?” Jeff’s face darkened as he began to scowl. “I thought the good Doctor turned you down.”

“What? Rich isn’t her-” Annie’s annoyed response died on her lips as a look of disbelief spread across her face. “How do _you_ know what he said?”

“Um.” Jeff’s scowl slipped for a moment as he felt the full weight of Annie’s disapproving stare fall on him. “It was a joke.” He was proud it had come out sounding more like a statement than a question, as he didn’t have a good reason for explaining why he’d been irrationally interested in what Rich’s response would be.

“ _Right_.” Annie took the opportunity to turn the focus of the conversation around to Jeff, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, it’s been great and all, but now I have to go, so-”

“OK.” Jeff nodded. “D’you want a ride home? My car’s just outside.” Jeff jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Um.” Annie twisted her hands together and pursed her lips before shaking her head, her eyes wide and darting. “Thanks, but I’m fine.” She blinked as she looked up at Jeff. “Thanks.”

“You already said that.” Jeff’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her skeptically. “If we’re both leaving, I’ll just drive you home.”

“Um.” Annie craned her neck to peek around Jeff’s shoulder down the hall: The door to the meeting room was still open, but there were no more people loitering outside. “I’m not leaving.”

“But you said you have to go.” Jeff crossed his arms, unconsciously mimicking Annie’s earlier stance.

“And I do.” Annie smiled widely, but Jeff could tell it was forced. She moved to step to one side to go around him, and her smile slipped for a fraction of a second when he matched her movement. “Jeff!” She laughed awkwardly and reached out to smack him on the arm. She stepped to the other side, and laughed again, more stilted this time when he matched her again. “Jeff. Seriously.” Annie’s lips tightened into a line. “I need to go.”

“Go where?” 

“Jus-just down there.” Annie gestured sort of vaguely over his shoulder and took the opportunity his distraction provided to slip around him and trot down the hall, slipping into the meeting room and reaching behind her to snag the door handle to pull the door closed. She squeaked when the door was jerked out her hand, and she spun to see Jeff staring at her through the doorway, a concerned frown on his face. She blanched and raised one hand to her throat, her mouth dropping open a little.

“Come on in!” A voice from behind her called out, and Annie and Jeff both looked over at a smiling blonde woman who was standing at the front of the room behind a lectern atop a folding banquet table. The group of people seated in folding chairs was looking at Annie and Jeff with varying degrees of curiosity. “Come on.” The woman stepped to one side of the lectern and gestured toward them both. “Don’t be shy. Is this a friend of yours, Annie?”

“Um.” Annie looked from the blonde to Jeff and back again. “Yeah.” 

“Well, come in then, Annie’s Friend.” The blonde, whose curls were struck through with a silvery gray, giggled. “We promise not to bite, don’t we, folks?”

“Thank you.” Jeff stepped through the doorway and pulled the door shut behind him. Annie made a quiet noise like a punctured balloon expelling the last of its air as it came to rest on the ground. She walked ahead of Jeff to take a seat, conscious that he was following behind her and settling into the chair next to hers in the middle of the room. The blonde nodded and returned to her place behind the lectern, rapping her knuckles on its top to bring the room to attention.

“Good evening, everyone.” She smiled at the group warmly. “My name is Joyce, and I’m a narcotics addict.”

Annie felt Jeff tense beside her and put a hand to her forehead with a shuddering breath.  
***  
At the intermission, Annie wound her way through the crowd to the refreshments table, where Joyce was standing, chatting with a tall, striking bald man and a shorter, wiry man with an ugly shirt and a hipster’s haircut. She stood to one side, twisting her fingers in the hem of her cardigan.

“- and that’s when she told me I should just give up this ‘silly dream’ of living on my own and trying to rebuild my relationship with Dee.” The wiry man frowned into his cup of punch. He started when the taller man clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look.

“Dennis, my man, you know your mother is a toxic presence. You just need to tell her what you’ve told her before: You’re not going to talk to her as long as she’s going to continue to disregard your feelings and not respect you trying to get clean.” The taller, bald man shook his head sadly while Dennis nodded to himself. 

“I know, Marcus.” Dennis downed the last of his punch and stuck one hand in his pocket. He glanced over at Annie. “Hey, Annie.”

“Hi, Dennis. Marcus.” She nodded and let go of her sweater to give them a little wave. She glanced over at Joyce, who nodded slightly.

“Boys, would you mind terribly giving Annie and me a moment?” The older woman deftly took Dennis’ empty cup and replaced it with a full one. Dennis looked down at the full cup and exchanged a look with Marcus.

“Sure thing, Joyce.” Marcus smiled and turned to go, leaning down to whisper in Annie’s ear as he passed. “By the way, your guy? _Cu-ute_!” Dennis snickered as Annie’s cheeks flushed, speaking out of the corner of his mouth as he followed Marcus.

“I’d watch your guy if I were you. Marcus moves fast, y’know.”

Joyce chuckled when Annie flushed from the base of her neck to the tips of her ears.

“Pay no attention to Marcus, sweetie.” Joyce filled a cup with punch and handed it to Annie, who took a sip, grimaced and set it down on the table. Joyce giggled again. “Sorry, I should’ve warned you: Kirstie’s got a penchant for buying the bargain brand, which has too much sugar.” Joyce reached over for a couple bottles of water, handing one to Annie and opening one for herself. “So, you wanted to ask me something?”

“Um.” Annie opened the bottle and took a sip, swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing it. “Yes.” She nodded toward Jeff, who was now chatting with Dennis and Marcus and looking like he wasn’t sure if Marcus really was flirting with him. “I know I was supposed to talk tonight, but I’d really rather not in front of my friend.”

“Annie.” Joyce played with the cap, flipping it over her knuckles like a coin. She looked up and stared Annie in the eye. “You know we need to be honest with the people we care about. Truthfulness about our addiction is key to the success of any relationship, not just so that they know who we have been and now are, but so that if we ask for help, they understand what we’re asking for.”

“I know, Joyce.” Annie cleared her throat. “But I didn’t invite him tonight. We ran into each other in the hall, and he followed me.” She ducked her head and tucked some hair behind her ear. “And I will tell him – all my friends – about it, but the first time any of them hear about it isn’t going to be in a testimonial at my NA meeting.” She raised her head and met Joyce’s skeptical gaze. Joyce took a deep breath and nodded.

“Whatever you think is best, Annie.”  
***  
The meeting had continued without event, though Joyce had given Annie a few significant looks. At one point, Jeff leaned over and asked if Joyce was upset wither her for some reason, to which Annie just shook her head and stared straight ahead.

At the end of the meeting, Marcus stood up to talk at Joyce’s invitation. He graced the room with a charming smile.

“My name is Marcus, and I am a narcotics addict.”

“Hi, Marcus.” The room replied in unison, and Jeff noticed that Annie was among them, though her voice was quiet and a little subdued.

“Hi.” Marcus nodded, and his smile dimmed a little. “I was in a car accident six years ago this month. My back got pretty screwed up.” He laughed a little bitterly. “Six years, and I still don’t know exactly what it was that happened. My doctor wrote it down for me once, but it’s a lot of medical jargon. It’s enough to say that my back got screwed up something awful, and pretty much from the moment I was wheeled into the emergency room, I was pretty seriously doped up.” He took a deep breath. “After I was taken off an intravenous morphine drip, I went through a few different pain prescriptions before my doctor found something that I could use to manage my pain.”  
“I didn’t realize I had a problem. It didn’t occur to me that my friends weren’t just not inviting or telling me about things: They were actively avoiding me. It didn’t occur to me that there was other stuff I was using the meds to manage; like, I hated my job. I mean, seriously, I _hated_ it. I’m talking ‘Office Space’-levels of hatred here. And my parents didn’t like the way I had ‘chosen’ to live my life.” Marcus used air quotes and rolled his eyes before running a hand over his head.  
“Two years ago, I was in another car accident.” He snorted. “I guess the only good thing about either of them was that neither one was my fault. Anyways, I didn’t get any new injuries, but it aggravated my existing back problems. When I got to the hospital – because I have this thing on my insurance card, where if I’m involved in a collision, I have to be checked out – and they gave me a morphine drip. And I’m lying there in a bed, tapping the button to increase the dose, and when a nurse came in, I started giving her a bad time because I thought it wasn’t working. I had actually turned it up as high as it would go.” Marcus sighed.  
“I’ve talked to a lot of you in the last year since I decided to get clean. Some of you went to rehab by people who loved you. Some of you voluntarily chose to go in because you realized you didn’t like the person you were becoming. I’m not that lucky or that self aware. I checked myself into rehab because I got scared. I didn’t want to know how much farther I would take this before I did something really stupid. And, I suppose, because I got pissed off: I didn’t want to give everyone else the luxury of being right about me when I did do something stupid because it was a _when_ and not an _if_ the way I was going. My name is Marcus. I am addicted to pain killers. I have been clean for 11 months. And I’m not going to let the bastards grind me down by proving them right – if I can help it.” Marcus nodded and stepped back from the podium as the room clapped for him. Joyce walked up and gave him a hug, then led the group in the serenity prayer.  
***  
Jeff stood silently behind Annie and nodded to Joyce, Dennis and Marcus as she said goodnight and collected her coat from the rack by the door. He walked with her toward the door to the parking lot, staring straight ahead silently. He knew Annie kept glancing up at him, her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling faintly. He paused when they reached the top step leading down to the parking lot and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets.

“So.” He looked out across the parking lot. “I shouldn’t have followed you.”

“Oh.” Annie’s reply was quiet, and her tone held a note of disappointment. “Yeah.”

“I mean-” Jeff paused, taking a deep breath, before stepping back to lean against the hand rail and look at Annie. “I mean that kind of put you on the spot. Which is…rude?”

“It certainly wasn’t the _gentlemanly_ thing to do.” Annie lifted her chin and quirked an eyebrow at him as she returned his stare. “Anyone with half a brain would’ve realized that.”

“Yeah. Well.” Jeff shrugged. “It’s me.” He gave her a half smile, his look softening a little when she smiled back and looked down and away quickly before returning her gaze to his.

“You’ve got a point.” Annie shivered and pulled the collar of her coat closed at her throat. “So, what’d you think of Marcus?”

“I think I have an admirer for life.” Jeff smirked and jumped down the three steps, bending his knees exaggeratedly as he landed and turning to look back up her.

“Duh.” Annie gave an exasperated sigh. “But that’s not what I meant.” She followed him as he wove his way through the parked cars toward his Lexus. “Listening to him talk about his addiction struck me as a little familiar, don’t you think?”

“Annie, I’ve gone on some benders in my life – just ask Abed – but I’ve never been that bad. You’d know better than I would.” He missed her flinch as he fiddled with the unlock button on his key fob.

“I didn’t mean- ugh.” Annie stuck her free hand in her pocket and shifted from one foot to the other until Jeff held open the passenger door for her. She waited till he was in the driver’s seat and pulling out of the parking lot before she continued. “I meant: A guy’s friends start avoiding him because he’s acting erratically _because_ he’s abusing pain killers. Doesn’t that sound sort of familiar to you?”

“Well, sure, Edison.” Jeff shook his head as he made a left-hand turn onto Annie’s street and headed toward the ambiguously crude neon sign for Dildopolis and her apartment. “But, y’know, it’s going to get old – eventually – milking Charlie Sheen for jokes.” He shot her a confused glance when she made a strangled noise and began drumming her fingers on the seat by her leg. He pulled into a parking space up the street from her building and shifted the car into park and turned to face her. “What are you getting at?”

“I just, well, I just don’t think I can be the only one who’s noticed that-” Annie paused as Jeff’s cell phone, in one of the cup holders, chimed. She looked from his face to his phone and back again, noting how intently he was looking at her and ignoring it. She sighed. “Go ahead.”

“OK. It’ll just be a minute.” Jeff snatched up his phone and tapped at the screen to read the text, which prompted him to start grumbling quietly as he tapped something else on the screen and began typing out a reply.

“Something wrong?” Annie leaned over, her cheek brushing against the sleeve of his jacket, to try to see the screen of his phone.

“Um.” Jeff swore and tapped the backspace key before finishing and hitting send. “I’d love to continue discussing recovering addicts, but that was Troy. Apparently, Pierce passed out by the pool again, and Troy needs me to come help him drag Pierce back into the house.”

“Pierce passed out in the pool?” Annie’s voice reached a pitch Jeff thought only dogs could hear, and he reached out to put a hand over her mouth, choosing to file away the feel of her lips against his palm for another time and shook his head.

“No. He passed out _by_ the pool. He did this a couple of times before Christmas, too.” Jeff took his hand away and shrugged. “The first time, Troy called Abed, but then he caught Abed putting an old hobby horse into Pierce’s bed, with its head on the pillow. So, then he started texting me. And apparently being Pierce’s emergency contact means more than just picking him up when he gets arrested by campus security for stealing the Dean’s car.”

“Oh.” Annie’s mouth formed a little ‘o,’ and she nodded slowly. “OK. Um. Thanks for the ride home.”

“You’re welcome.” Jeff watched as she climbed out of the car and leaned down to look at him through the open door. “I’ll see you in class. Now go straight up to your apartment and lock your door.”

“ _Jeff_.” Annie shook her head and stuck out her tongue at him before closing the door and entering the building.

Jeff waited until he saw a light come on in an upper floor window (He assumed it was hers.) before shifting back into drive. His gaze dropped to the window of Dildopolis, and he tilted his head to one side as he read a sign advertising a buy four-or-more, get one free store special, and shook his head. He pulled away from the curb and headed toward the other side of town and Pierce’s house.

“Why would anyone need that many strap-ons?”


End file.
